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The whole staggering mystery : a story of fathers lost and found / Sylvia Brownrigg.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: California : Counterpoint, 2024Edition: First Counterpoint editionDescription: 323 pages : illustrations, genealogical table ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781640096561
  • 1640096566
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Summary: "When Sylvia Brownrigg received a package addressed to her father that had been lost for over fifty years, she wanted to deliver it to him before it was too late. She did not expect that her father, Nick, would choose not to open it, so she and her brother finally did. Nick, an absent father, was a hippie and would-be Beat writer who lived off the grid in Northern California. Nick's own father, Gawen-also absent-had been a well-born Englishman who wrote a Bloomsbury-like novel about lesbian lovers, before moving to Kenya and ultimately dying a mysterious death at age twenty-seven. Brownrigg was told he had likely died by suicide. Reconstructing Gawen's short, colorful life from revelations in the package takes her through glamorous 1930s London and Pasadena, toward the last gasp of the British Empire in Kenya, and from there, deep into the California redwoods, where Nick later carved out a rugged path in the wilderness, keeping his English past at bay. Vividly weaving together the lives of her father and grandfather, through memory and imagination, Brownrigg explores issues of sexuality and silences, and childhoods fractured by divorce. In her uncovering of this lost family, she finally makes her own story whole"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Shelving location Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography New BROWNRIG S. B885 Checked out 06/12/2024 33111011349350
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

When Sylvia Brownrigg received a package addressed to her father that had been lost for over fifty years, she wanted to deliver it to him before it was too late. She did not expect that her father, Nick, would choose not to open it, so she and her brother finally did. Nick, an absent father, was a hippie and would-be Beat writer who lived off the grid in Northern California. Nick's own father, Gawen - also absent - had been a well-born Englishman who wrote a Bloomsbury-like novel about lesbian lovers, before moving to Kenya and ultimately dying a mysterious death at age twenty-seven. Brownrigg was told he had likely died by suicide. Reconstructing Gawen's short, colorful life from revelations in the package takes her through glamorous 1930s London and Pasadena, toward the last gasp of the British Empire in Kenya, and from there, deep into the California redwoods, where Nick later carved out a rugged path in the wilderness, keeping his English past at bay. Vividly weaving together the lives of her father and grandfather, through memory and imagination, Brownrigg explores issues of sexuality and silences, and childhoods fractured by divorce. In her uncovering of this lost family, she finally makes her own story whole.

Includes bibliographical references.

"When Sylvia Brownrigg received a package addressed to her father that had been lost for over fifty years, she wanted to deliver it to him before it was too late. She did not expect that her father, Nick, would choose not to open it, so she and her brother finally did. Nick, an absent father, was a hippie and would-be Beat writer who lived off the grid in Northern California. Nick's own father, Gawen-also absent-had been a well-born Englishman who wrote a Bloomsbury-like novel about lesbian lovers, before moving to Kenya and ultimately dying a mysterious death at age twenty-seven. Brownrigg was told he had likely died by suicide. Reconstructing Gawen's short, colorful life from revelations in the package takes her through glamorous 1930s London and Pasadena, toward the last gasp of the British Empire in Kenya, and from there, deep into the California redwoods, where Nick later carved out a rugged path in the wilderness, keeping his English past at bay. Vividly weaving together the lives of her father and grandfather, through memory and imagination, Brownrigg explores issues of sexuality and silences, and childhoods fractured by divorce. In her uncovering of this lost family, she finally makes her own story whole"-- Provided by publisher.

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